TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/072489/07248900.024

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.7 KB | 110 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 29

SOUTH AFRICA

An Unlikely Tea for Two


By meeting with Botha, Mandela gives his blessing to direct
talks between his supporters and the government


    A mere hour's drive separates the prison farm where Nelson
Mandela is being held and State President P.W. Botha's
white-pillared residence in Cape Town. But the political
distance between those two men has always seemed unbridgeable.
They have personified the country's racial stalemate: Mandela,
who turns 71 this week, insisted that he would make no deals
with the white government while he remained a prisoner; Botha,
73, vowed that he would never free the symbolic leader of the
nation's black majority unless Mandela forswore the use of
violence.

    To the astonishment of black and white South Africans, the
government disclosed last week that the chasm may not be as
impossibly wide as once thought. In his 27th year of
imprisonment, serving a life sentence for sabotage, Mandela
accepted an invitation from Botha to meet face to face for the
first time. The two adversaries spent 45 minutes on July 5
talking "in a pleasant spirit" and sipping tea. It was not a
negotiation, said Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee, who also
participated, but the two foes confirmed "their support for
peaceful development in South Africa." By agreeing to that,
Mandela seemed to qualify for admission to negotiations with the
government under a new formulation from the ruling National
Party welcoming all "people who have a commitment to peace" to
join in efforts to draft a new constitution that would provide
a national political role for blacks.

    White right wingers called Botha a "traitor" for sitting
down with a man they consider a terrorist. White liberals felt
confirmed in their belief that Mandela and his organization, the
outlawed African National Congress, hold the key to successful
negotiations between blacks and whites. But Mandela had not
informed the A.N.C., his family or anyone else about the
meeting, and black activists were shocked and confused when they
learned of it. For years they have refused to consider or
tolerate any contact with the government, demanding that it
first release Mandela, legalize the A.N.C. and end the state of
emergency.

    One of the most prominent antiapartheid leaders, the Rev.
Frank Chikane, along with Mandela's wife Winnie, quickly called
a press conference to dismiss the talks in Cape Town as a
"nonevent," an act of "political mischief" staged by Mandela's
jailers. In Lusaka, Joe Modise, commander of Spear of the
Nation, the guerrilla wing of the A.N.C. that Mandela helped
create in 1961, insisted that "only the armed struggle will
bring the Boers to negotiations."

    Mandela, who has a television and radio in his
three-bedroom house at Victor Verster Prison, heard the angry
reaction of his supporters. In a statement released last
Wednesday, he repeated his conviction that a government
"dialogue with the mass democratic movement, and in particular
with the African National Congress, is the only way of ending
violence and bringing peace." His intention, he told his
followers, was "to contribute to the creation of the climate"
that would lead to such negotiations. Black leaders immediately
began downplaying their resentment, and Chikane retreated. "I
welcome Mr. Mandela's commitment" to creating such a climate,
he said.

    Though Mandela holds no official position in the A.N.C., he
has proved that even in prison he is the leader to reckon with.
Nor should there be much surprise at this: he has always been
more realistic and flexible than A.N.C. leaders in exile or
such internal antiapartheid coalitions as the United Democratic
Front and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. In
interviews granted to occasional VIP visitors to his cell, he
conceded that white fears of domination must be taken into
account in designing a black majority government -- something
A.N.C. policy rejects. He has also maintained warm relations
with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of the Zulu-based Inkatha
organization, which is fighting a bloody war against A.N.C. and
U.D.F. supporters. His wish, Mandela recently wrote Buthelezi,
is to unify all the black movements.

    After recovering from tuberculosis last year, Mandela
apparently concluded that he had to try to get negotiations
going before his time ran out, and agreed to meet Botha. He
talked secretly over several months with at least four Cabinet
ministers, and would have seen Botha much earlier if the
President had not suffered a stroke last January. Botha, the man
who told his white countrymen in 1979 that they had to "adapt
or die," seemed determined to begin the process before he
retires next September. By arranging the meeting, says Cape Town
University Professor David Welsh, Botha acknowledged both
Mandela and the A.N.C. as significant "players" in the search
for a political settlement.

    For all the confusion it caused, the Mandela-Botha meeting
answers some long-standing questions. There can be no doubt now
that the government's improved treatment of Mandela, which
began when he was hospitalized a year ago, will lead to his
eventual release. It could come just after the Sept. 6
parliamentary elections, so that Botha can claim credit for the
step before handing over the presidency to the new National
Party leader, F.W. de Klerk. Similarly, it seems inevitable that
the A.N.C., which the government still classifies as a terrorist
organization, will be included in future negotiations. It is a
testament to his leadership abilities that Mandela has already
led his reluctant followers into talks about talks.